134 STATE IIOKTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



figure too close to cost, make jam, which never is a drug on tlie market, and 

 in which tlicre is a liandsonie profit. 



J. N. Stearns: In the selection of the best varieties 1 think lies a goodly 

 share of our margins. We need to exercise a prophetic impulse to make the 

 most out of our selection of varieties. There is fashion in fruits as well as in 

 dress, and one wlio marks well tlie tendencies will ))hint wisely for a decade 

 in advance of him. Good fruit, well packed and well delivered, will never cry 

 for a market. To get the good fruit we must thin more, as Mr. Healy 

 remarks. In my peach orchard I thinned to six inches apart, and I was sur- 

 prised, after three-fourths the fruit had been taken off by this process, to find 

 too many left, and in many instances thinned again by removing one-half of 

 the remainder. All this because it does not pay to grow culls. Out of 4,000 

 baskets grown in my orchard the past year I did not have 25 baskets to throw 

 away. 



Again, we need to know more about insects and most approved methods of 

 destroying them, to increase our profits, and perhaps I may be pardoned again 

 for referring to a bit of my own experience. 1 have been troubled greatly 

 with airculio, and the past season tried the following remedy with excellent 

 success : 



I placed a pint of crude carbolic acid in a })ail of water, and with this 

 slacked quick-lime until it was in a powder; this, with a wooden jxiddle, I cast 

 into the trees, and had no rose-bugs nor curcuUo when it was employed. 



Prof. Cook: I am glad some one has iiad success with this remedy, for I 

 had it in my mind that it would prove successful, but upon trying it I found 

 the curculio only laughed at my pains and continued their work of destruction 

 as before. 



B. Gott : It seems to me that the matter of cultivation is a largo factor in 

 the profits of fruit growing. 



Mr. Rosenkrans : Possibly it may not be out of place to tell how I make 

 money in orcharding. I cultivate according to variety. We can not force 

 the Baldwin, and it is one of our best market sorts. In ])ickiMg, I use small 

 boys in the trees a good deal, who pick in bags and hand dowu to men who 

 carefully place in barrels. I take the barrels into the barn toward the close of 

 September, leaving the doors open nights and closing them daytimes, until 

 quite cold weather, when they are transferred to the cellar. 



Mr. Stearns: It seems to me safe to cultivate any variety until July 1st 

 thoroughly. 



Mr. Leland : You do not live as far north as we: if you did. you would 

 undergo a change of mind upon this subject. 



Mr. Kosenkrans: In different locations we need to deal differently with our 

 orchards. I find even in our own county the same method of culture will not 

 answer everywhere. I meant to have remarked before that my experience leads 

 me to believe it disastrous to cut out the center of our trees in this climate 

 and open the tops. 



Mr. Green, Eaton liapids: I have derived more profit in 80 years from the 

 Baldwin variety than all others combined. 



Mr. Stowell: In southern Michigan Baldwins are shipped by tiie thousaiuls 

 of barrels; nine-tenths of the apples shipped are of this variety. 



N. E. Smitii, Ionia: I have all the leading varieties, but the Baldwin 

 beats them all. One-half the trees planted in Ionia county are worthless for 

 profit, and it is not economy in our climate to top graft large trees. For 

 profit we waut a good red apple. 



